U.S.
LABOR DEBATES DIRECTION
By David Bacon
Trade Union Rights, London

BERKELEY, CA (2/19/05) – For almost a year, a debate has been growing
within the US labor movement over its direction, structure, politics and
vision. Previous attempts have been made to discuss the problems of labor
in the post-McCarthy period, notably when the slate headed by current
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney campaigned for office a decade ago. The
current debate, however, is already more far-reaching, and has elicited
formal contributions from many international unions, state labor federations,
central labor councils, local unions, and individuals. (They are posted
on the AFL-CIO website, http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/ourfuture/proposals.cfm)

This
discussion was formally initiated at last summer’s convention of
the Service Employees International Union, when President Andy Stern called
for deep structural change in US unions. He warned that while problems
might be submerged through the election season in the interest of defeating
President George Bush, they would reemerge afterwards, and could be put
off no longer. Stern himself pushed that process along, when his union
issued a 10-point proposal in December, called Unite To Win, which immediately
stirred intense controversy. Other unions responded.

Almost
every voice has agreed that labor today faces an unprecedented crisis,
caused by the declining percentage of organized workers in the US workforce.
Just after World War 2, unions represented 35% of US workers. By 1975,
after the Vietnam War, it had dropped to 26%. Today only 12% of all workers,
and 8% in the private sector, are union members.

SEIU’s
proposals cover a wide range of issues, but its most controversial items
include giving the AFL-CIO the authority to require small unions to merge
into ones large enough to have strength to bargain and organize, and to
redivide jurisdictions, so that workers in the same industry would no
longer be divided among a number of unions. In a recent interview on KPFA
radio, Stern held up the west coast longshore contract as a model, in
which local unions in every port come together to negotiate one agreement
with the entire shipping industry. “Contrast that with Kaiser,”
he said, where for a long time sixteen separate unions went their own
way, and the strength of workers was divided. Or take the airline industry,
where unions are divided by craft, by companies, by union and non-union.
We have to look in the mirror and be honest. When we divide the strength
of workers, and we don’t have a united strategy, workers pay the
price.”
One response to the SEIU proposals comes from the American Federation
of Teachers. The AFT’s contribution, Joining Voices, notes that
“despite unprecedented efforts in organizing, political mobilization
and community outreach, organized labor in 2004 commands less power to
save and secure good-paying jobs, expand collective bargaining rights
throughout the economy, enact family-friendly national legislation and
assure decent education, housing, healthcare and dignified retirement
for American workers than at any time in more than half a century.”

The
AFT, like many unions, however, expresses reservations about forced mergers
and changes in jurisdiction, while admitting that the goal of increased
strength is a good one. “We are unaware of any reliable and valid
objective data,” the report says, “demonstrating that critical
mass or density occurring within a single union as opposed to several
results in better or poorer outcomes for any given segment of the workforce...”
It calls for Industry Occupation Labor Centers, in which many unions could
cooperate to organize and represent workers in a given industry, on a
voluntary basis. “This approach relies on voluntarism and inclusion
rather than exclusivity,” it says. “The AFT’s experience
in pursuing merger with the NEA demonstrates the difficulties of moving
such an agenda, even with the full support of the leadership of both national
organizations. Any attempt to dictate .. would from the start be doomed
to fail.”

Other
unions have expressed concern over the ability of rank-and-file union
members to have a voice in the restructuring process, and exert adequate
control over the proposed larger unions. Larry Cohen, vice-president of
the Communications Workers of America, emphasizes that “strengthening
the role of shop stewards and workplace mobilizers continues to be critical
for collective bargaining, organizing and political action. In fact, without
effective shop stewards, there is little likelihood that we will be successful
in any area. Union democracy is not a slogan, it must be a reality in
everything we do.”

Similar
proposal for consolidating central labor councils and state federations,
giving them staff appointed by the AFL-CIO, have elicited similar concerns.
According to the North Carolina Federation of Labor, “democracy
is the cornerstone of the labor movement at every level. The rank and
file should have a voice in the direction of the labor movement,”
it says. “We believe strongly that having elected officers rather
than appointed staff is critical.”

“Workers
are going to get a chance to vote no matter what we do,” Stern responds.
“But the truth is you have to have a certain amount of strength
in this economy to deal with global or national employers. The question
isn’t whether we’re going to take away rank-and-file democracy,
it’s whether we’re going to have the strength in which democracy
can be exercised.”

Both
SEIU and AFT proposals agree that organizing is a critical issue, and
that it requires more support, but they have different ideas about where
that support should come from. SEIU calls on the AFL-CIO to take the $25
million annually that it receives from union credit card royalties, and
use it to boost organizing. Wal-Mart should be the target, the union’s
proposal explains, because it has become a symbol of low-wage, no-benefit
employment, affecting millions of workers in other jobs.

“When
we think about auto, steel and rubber workers,” Stern says, “before
the 1930s and 40s they didn’t have high skilled, high wage jobs.
But they got a union, and a union job turned out to be a good job, where
you could raise a family and enter the middle class. Wal-Mart jobs are
not inherently bad jobs. Wal-Mart workers are not inherently unskilled
people. They just work for a company that thinks it’s more important
to give the five Walton family members, who are each worth 20 billion
dollars, another billion dollars a year, rather than to give every employee
healthcare.”

SEIU
would have the AFL-CIO require affiliated unions to devote eventually
20% of their revenue to organizing, using a rebate of federation per capita
payments as a reward.

Both
SEIU and the AFT make a proposal calling for the creation of new unions
in the now-vast sections of the US economy and geography where they don’t
exist. The AFT recalls that this was the method used when the United Mine
Workers sponsored the creation of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee
in the 1930s, or when the United Auto Workers helped public workers and
teachers get bargaining rights a few decades later. It calls its approach
solidarity organizing. Unions created from scratch in industries like
high tech, banking and insurance, or in regions like the south and southwest,
might be able to defy injunctions and use innovative tactics, since they
wouldn’t have the buildings, funds and assets that established unions
are often worried they might lose.

Contention
grew much more heated over how unions should engage in politics, in the
wake of George Bush’s reelection last November. The AFT’s
proposal contains no specific recommendations for change, but presents
A Peoples’ Agenda, arguing that “labor’s power, legitimacy
and appeal are derived from enduring principles rather than from more-effective
tactics and efficient structures.” The items on the agenda include
full employment and fair compensation, dignified work and dignified retirement,
healthcare and leisure, quality public education and available child care
for all, civil rights and economic opportunity, decent housing and quality
public services, participation in the structure, processes and quality
of work, and international solidarity upholding labor rights as human
rights.

SEIU
calls for reassessing labor’s relationship with the Democratic Party.
“Workers don’t have a party right now that speaks clearly
and precisely to their economic interests,” Stern asserts. “Workers
are looking for leadership on the economic issues that confront them every
day, and don’t see in either the Democrats or the Republicans the
kind they want. It is up to our union and other unions to raise the question,
Where are the organizations that speak for us? Can we change the ones
that are there to be more responsive to workers? If not, what do we need
to do? We’re not going to win elections for workers when you don’t
have parties that run on platforms that mean much change in their lives.”

While
disagreeing intensely over possible changes in structure, there is a general
feeling in most reform proposals that the social vision of the labor movement
has become too limited. As a result, workers outside union ranks often
don’t feel inspired by the idea that an alternative to the present
situation is possible, and that unions speak for it. The People’s
Agenda represents an effort to define that vision, placed in terms of
New Deal style demands. “If what we stand for first is more powerful
unions, card check and neutrality, density and market share, we’re
going to continue to become even more marginalized, even when we win,”
it warns.

Stern
has announced, however, that the discussion process must result in concrete
changes, agreed at the AFL-CIO convention in July. He has threatened to
leave the federation in the absence of a sufficiently far-reaching program.
“We need to either change the AFL-CIO, or build something stronger,”
he warns. “We could do both -- it’s not necessarily an either/or
choice. But workers in this country need a fighting chance to change their
lives. Unless we have organizations that are focused exclusively on doing
that, we’re in a desperate situation. Even if it means that our
union or other unions go out and try it alone, I think that’s better
than continuing to go in the same direction.”